With Gianforte's win, two of Montana's three congressional reps have ties to Oracle
With Gianforte's win, two of Montana's three congressional reps have ties to Oracle, Senator Steve Daines from Montana predicted in early May that Republican Greg Gianforte would win the special election this week for the state's lone House seat by eight to 10 points. Gianforte won by six.
This wasn't pure guesswork. In addition to representing Montana for the past five years -- first as a congressman and now as a senator -- Daines is quite familiar with Gianforte. They worked together for 12 years at a customer relationship management (CRM) software company called RightNow Technologies, which Oracle acquired in 2012 for $1.5 billion.
Before that, the former tech executives partnered on a construction project to build RightNow's headquarters in Bozeman.
Montana's economy is heavy in mining, transportation and agricultural products like beef, barley and hay. But in terms of the state's representation in Washington, the technology industry -- and one company in particular -- now has outsized influence.
Spoke to a GOP'er in MT who fully expects Gianforte to win but predicts a 5 point margin, max. #MTAL => https://twitter.com/pollsterpolls/status/861598839890890752 …
@DavidMDrucker I think Gianforte may do better than that. Would guess 8-10, but my political predictions of late were worse than my March Madness bracket!
On Thursday, Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist, a folk singer, in a special election to replace Ryan Zinke, who President Trump tapped as his secretary of the Department of the Interior. The contest hit national headlines Wednesday night, when an audio recording circulated of Gianforte at a campaign event bodyslamming a reporter from The Guardian who asked him a question on the health care bill.
At his victory party the following night, Gianforte apologized to Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs and said, "I'm not proud of what happened."
Gianforte, who narrowly lost a bid to become Montana's governor last year, and Daines account for two-thirds of the state's representatives in Congress. The other is Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who comes from a farming background.
Gianforte earned a fortune from the sale of RightNow. He founded the company in 1997, and he and his wife owned close to a quarter of the business at the time of the acquisition. Daines was RightNow's vice president of the Asia-Pacific region.
According to RightNow's 2010 annual report, the last before the acquisition, Gianforte and Daines owned a combined 75 percent of Genesis Partners, a real estate company that was the "landlord from whom we lease our principal offices in Bozeman."
